be a proper compensation for two, three, six, or seven trips per week. If the act of 1880 prohibits the Postmaster-General, in every case where a contract has been made for one trip per week, from paying for expedited service on any but that one trip, then the act has practically taken from him the power to authorize the performance of one trip per week under that contract. Policy required a construction which will not impair the powers of that officer.

Section 3961 has been uniformly construed as having reference to the trips specified and provided for in the contracts, and the term "compensation in the original contract" has always been understood to mean the sum of the cost of all the trips provided for under that contract, and which, by the terms of the contract, the contractor might be required to perform.

In presenting this appeal of the contractor, the attention of the Comptroller is called to the following provisions in the contractor's agreement with the Post-Office Department:

"It is hereby stipulated and agreed by the said contractor and his sureties that the Postmaster-General may discontinue or extend this contract, change the schedule and the termini of the route, and alter, increase, decrease, or extend the same in accordance with law, he allow ing a pro rata increase of compensation for any additional service thereby required, or for increased speed, if the employment of additional stock or carriers is rendered necessary; and, in case of decrease, curtailment, or discontinuance of service, as a full indemnity to said contractor, one month's extra pay in the amount of service dispensed with, and a pro rata compensation for the service retained: Provided, however, That, in case of increased expedition, the contractor may, upon timely notice, relinquish the contract."

Under this clause the contractor had the right to decline to perform the expedited service required of him. . If he had been informed that he could not have been paid for all the expedited service on route 46211 but $349.50, he would undoubtedly have declined to perform it. He did not decline, because he was promised by the PostmasterGeneral $2,446 in payment for the service when performed.

DECISION BY WILLIAM LAWRENCE, First Comptroller:

The questions arising on this appeal relate to what is called the "Star-route service."*

*This service has been thus explained: The name "Star Route" has been adopted and is used by the Post-Office Department to designate all post-routes established by Congress other than railroad and steamboat routes.

Section 18, of the act of March 3, 1845, 5th Stat., page 738, provides for the letting of contracts for the transportation of the mails to the lowest bidder, without other reference to the modes of such transportation than may be necessary to provide for the due celerity, certainty, and security of such transportation.

Immediately after the passage of the above act, blank contracts were printed with three groups of four stars each, thus:

*

*

99 66

in the body of the contract, and are intended to signify the words " "celerity," certainty," and "security."

The word "star," as applied to post-routes, first appears officially in a report of the Postmaster-General, dated December 1, 1860, page 2, in which he states that the coach and inferior modes of service had been merged into one class, styled "star," or

H. Ex. Doc. 219- -29

The Revised Statutes provide as follows:

"SEC. 3960. Compensation for additional service in carrying the mail shall not be in excess of the exact proportion which the original compensation bears to the original service; and when any such additional service is ordered, the sum to be allowed therefor shall be expressed in the order, and entered upon the books of the Department; and no compensation shall be paid for any additional regular service rendered before the issuing of such order.

"SEC. 3961. No extra allowance shall be made for any increase of expedition in carrying the mail unless thereby the employment of additional stock and carriers is made necessary, and in such case the additional compensation shall bear no greater proportion to the additional stock and carriers necessarily employed than the compensation in the original contract bears to the stock and carriers necessarily employed in its execution."

"SEC. 3965. The Postmaster-General shall provide for carrying the mail on all post-roads established by law, as often as he, having due regard to productiveness and other circumstances, may think proper."

Section 2 of the act of April 7, 1880, (21 Stats., 71,) "to provide for a deficiency in the appropriations for the transportation of the mails on star routes for the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and eighty, and for other purposes," contains a clause as follows:

"Provided, That the Postmaster-General shall not hereafter have the power to expedite the service under any contract either now existing or hereafter given to a rate of pay exceeding fifty per centum upon the contract as originally let."

When an original contract is made for carrying the mail on any route for one trip a week, and the Postmaster-General subsequently requires two or more trips a week, the additional trips are called "increased" or "additional" service. When such contract requires a trip to be made on a route in, say, thirty-four hours, and it is modified by an order of the Postmaster-General requiring the trip to be made in eighteen or any less number of hours, the service rendered under the modified contract is called "expedited" service.

The question raised by the appeal applies to both contracts. It will, therefore, only be necessary to examine the action of the Sixth Auditor in relation to compensation for service on route No. 46211. The original contract provided that the mail should be carried once in each week in thirty-four hours, for $699 per annum. The service was subsequently

with "celerity, certainty, and security." A like explanation is given of the use of the word "star" as applied to mail service, in a glossary of words, having a technical meaning in the postal service, appended to the Postal Laws and Regulations of 1879. The term "star routes" is first used by Congress in an act approved July 12, 1876, making appropriation for the service of the Post-Office Department for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1877, and for other purposes, in which an amount is appropriated "for transportation on star routes, and by steamboats, and all other than railroad routes." (See 19 Stats., 78, 79.)

increased four trips, making in all five per week, and the time was expedited to eighteen hours per trip. The Sixth Auditor, in his settlement of the contractor's account for the quarter ending June 30, 1881, allowed compensation at the rate of $699 per annum for each of the five trips per week; and he allowed for the expedited service only $87.37, being at the rate of fifty per centum on the original contract price for one trip, and disallowed $524.25, as being in excess of fifty per centum of the contract as originally let.* It will thus be seen that the order of the Postmaster-General of February 25, 1881, prescribed an increase of fifty per cent. on the contract price for each of the five expedited trips per week; but the Sixth Auditor only allowed the extra fifty per cent. on one of the five trips per week, thus holding, in effect, that the Postmaster-General exceeded his authority except as to one trip per week. Did he so exceed his authority in respect of the expedited service ordered on this route? This question involves a construction of the statutes above cited.

** * *

The act of April 7, 1880, (21 Stats., 71,) provides that "the Postmaster-General shall not hereafter have the power to expedite the service under any contract to a rate of pay exceeding fifty per centum upon the contract as originally let." It is entirely clear from this language that the authorized increase of fifty per centum relates solely to the service and compensation specified in the original contract. The contract as "originally let❞ only authorized one trip per week, at an annual compensation of $699. What was the "rate of pay" "upon the contract as originally let?" There can be but one answer, namely, $699 per annum. This is the rate of pay which the statute declares shall not be increased "exceeding fifty per centum" by reason of expedited service. There is no ambiguity in the language of the statute. The Supreme Court holds that in such case "statutes must rest on the words used-nothing adding thereto, nothing diminishing." (L. L. & G. R. R. Co. vs. United States, 92 U. S., 751.) When the meaning of the language of the Revised Statutes is plain, "the courts cannot look to the statutes which have been revised to see if Congress erred in that revision, but may do so when necessary to construe doubtful language." (United States vs. Bowen, 100 U. S., 513; United States vs. Hirsch, Id., 35; Waller vs. Harris, 20 Wend., 562; Sedgwick, Stat. and Const. L.,

*Thus: The contract price for a year for one trip per week

One-fourth for three months.

Fifty per cent. for expediting one trip

These two latter sums are allowed by the Sixth Auditor.

$699 00

174 75

87 37

The amount allowed for expedited service by order of February 25, 1881, per annum, $2,446.50, equal per quarter to $611.62, and claimed by contractor, of which disallowed, $524.25, and allowed, $87.37.

195; Johnson vs. Bush, 3 Barb. Ch. 238; Young vs. Dake, 1 Selden, 463.) Vattel says: "The first general maxim of interpretation is, that it is not allowable to interpret what has no need of interpretation." The maxim, Optima statuti interpretatrix est (omnibus particulis ejusdem inspectis) ipsum statutum, applies in this case.

In construing a statute, four things are to be considered: (1) the prior law, (2) the mischief and defect for which it did not provide, (3) the remedy the later statute has provided, and (4) the true reason of the remedy. (Potter's Dwarris, Stats., 184; Heydon's case, 3 Coke, 7; 1 Kent, Com., 462; 10 Coke, 6; Plowd., 10, 57, 350, 363; Boulton vs. Bull, 2 H. Blackst., 499; Sedgwick, Stat. and Const. L., 198; 1 Blackst. Com., 87.) The prior law conferred large discretionary powers on the Postmaster-General in respect of making extra allowances for expedited service. This, as the act of April 7, 1880, shows, was deemed by Congress an evil. Under the prior law a skilful contractor might drive off competition by a bid to carry the mail for less than the service was worth. Having done this, he might, on an order for expedited service, obtain exorbitant compensation and profits. A door was open to favoritism and fraud, and Congress deemed it proper to establish a safe rule which should not lead into temptation. Although it should not be assumed that frauds or official indiscretions were committed, it must nevertheless be admitted that there was, prior to the passage of the act of April 7, 1880, an opportunity to make, upon ex parte and interested representations, enormous unnecessary expenditures without the direct sanction of Congress; hence the limitation imposed by the act of 1880 in respect of expediting star-route service. The "star-route" investigations in Congress, if it were proper to refer to them, would sufficiently show that this evil was the inspiring cause of the limitation put upon the powers of the Postmaster-General by that act. (Vol. 3, House Mis. Doc. 31, Parts 1 and 2, March 25, 1880, 46th Cong., 2d Sess.) The meaning of the statute is not, however, to be ascertained by reference to the report of the Postmaster-General, or the investigations or debates in Congress. (Sedgwick, Stat. and Const. L., 203; Bank of Pa. vs. Com., 19 Pa. St., 144; Southwark Bank vs. Com., 26 Pa. St., 446; Leese vs. Clark, 12 Cal., 387, 425; Taylor vs. Taylor, 10 Minn., 107.)

It has been urged by counsel for appellant, in respect of the powers of the Postmaster-General, that "policy required a construction which will not impair the powers of that officer." The answer to this is, that the powers of that officer are conferred by Congress; and, therefore, the question is not one of policy, but of legislative intent. Did Con

gress by the act of 1880 limit the power granted in prior laws in respect of expediting star-route service? The purpose of the proviso was, plainly, to limit and reduce the powers previously exercised by the Postmaster-General under the Revised Statutes; it is, therefore, the duty of the proper accounting officers of the Treasury to construe it so as to meet the mischief intended to be guarded against and advance the remedy provided. (Potter's Dwarris, 184; Hart vs. Cleis, 8 Johns., 44.) In Lyde vs. Barnard, it was said by Parke, B., that "when the act is intended to remedy some existing mischief, and such a construction is required to render the remedy effectual * * we must always construe * * so as to suppress the mischief and advance the remedy." (Lyde vs. Barnard, 1 M. & W., 113; Potter's Dwarris, 73; Johns vs. Johns, 3 Dow, 15; Gillett vs. Moody, 3 N. Y., 479; People vs. Runkle, 9 Johns., 147.) "This is especially the case as to statutes which relate to matters of public utility." (Magdalen College case, 11 Coke, 71.) "Whenever the intention [of the statute] can be discovered it ought to be followed, with reason and discretion in its construction," (Tonnele vs. Hall, 4 Comst., 140;) and "this intention is sometimes to be collected from the cause or necessity of making the statute." (People vs. Utica Ins. Co., 15 Johns., 358, 380, 381; 1 Bl. Com., 61.) Sometimes the general state of public opinion at the time of the enactment may be considered in ascertaining legislative intention. (Sedgwick, Stat. and Const. L., 203; Keyport St. Co. vs. Farmers' Trans. Co., 3 C. E. Green, 13; Delaplane vs. Crenshaw, 15 Gratt., 457.)

To hold that there may be an increase of fifty per centum on every additional expedited trip, would be to leave without adequate remedy the evil intended to be remedied. The original contract was for one trip per week at an annual compensation of $699, and seven expedited trips each week were ordered. An increase of fifty per centum on each, would make the annual compensation of the contractor $7,339.50; thereby making an increase of 350 per centum in the rate of pay "upon the contract as originally let," instead of fifty per centum as provided in the statute. The act of April 7, 1880, must, upon the principles stated, be construed as limiting the authority of the Postmaster-General. He had not, to quote the language of the statute, authority to "expedite the service," in the case submitted, "to a rate of pay exceeding fifty per centum upon the contract as originally let." He might, according to his discretion, have ordered this rate of expedition to apply to one trip a week; or he might have ordered it to be distributed pro rata to each trip, but there was no authority to exceed that rate in gross.